Defenestration wrote:I'm a little surprised you opted to do that before you had a demo up... not sure about that. But voted for you.

Thanks... but do you think the demo you played was good enough? I have not changed much since I've been preparing the Greenlight thing. I just made a new demo (replaced the old one) but there is almost nothing new, just some fixes to some crap things (still no volume slider, sorry).

I thought it was going to be better. Half of the people in the comments just don't like it and the ones that do have suggestions to make, implying the game is not good enough. I don't think I can change the game too much now and I'm not good enough with scripting/animating to give the game the polish it can have.

I don't know, I really thought the game looked good. Looking at the pictures the graphics look pretty fine to me.. then again, I like Nintendo games and I didn't understand what the big deal with Star Fox Zero's graphics was. Maybe I'm behind the times.

The first thing the guy with the spider avatar mentions is how the graphics are sub-par.. it's like he knows it's the best part of the game and they're trying to hit me where it hurts.. I mean, yeah, compared with AAA titles the graphics aren't that hot, but damn it if my game looks better than most other games in the Greenlight... and I don't see spider guy saying anything bad about other games with worse graphics (he has posted in almost every other recent game). Of course, if I look at his profile, his favorite game is a 16-bit looking game with very simple pixelated graphics. It's almost like you can make games with mediocre retro graphics and that's ok, but get some mediocre polygons and it's total shit unless the textures themselves are pixelated.

Maybe it's because it's late in the day but there haven't been many visitors. I'm getting worried.

The opinions of any public comments section plus a nickel will get you a penny. Don't get your feedback from that, even if they try to sound constructive.

More importantly, though, you're going to need to advertise this thing outside of a failing salmon-colored community of hermits if you want to get picked out from this hypersaturated throng of me-toos. I don't know how normal people usually get through Greenlight, but judging by what gets money and support in general, the best thing to do is to pick whatever popular classic game that your thing is most like (Super Mario 64? Spyro?) and go around to the megacommunities where those things are popular saying "HEY EVERYONE I MADE A GAME THAT'S EXACTLY LIKE THAT GAME YOU REMEMBER IN THESE WAYS, ETC. ETC. ETC."

That's a bit of a crutch, but it's nothing to be ashamed of, and doesn't speak at all to the quality of your product. Bloodstained was Symphony of the Night, Undertale was Earthbound, Indivisible was Valkyrie Profile, Shovel Knight was DuckTales, Axiom Verge was Metroid, Mighty Number 9 was Mega Man 2... All these things are outright stated by the developers, or at least very heavily implied. Don't be afraid to take all the crutches you can get, because the system is stacked high against you right now. It's way overglutted with garbage to the point that that's what everybody assumes, and gamers have gotten so weird and cultish that if you're not "in" somebody's group you're just going to be met base hostility.

Yeah, I know sticking your neck into the social aspect of gaming is asking for a lot. But, fuck, you made your own fully-realized world from scratch. You're good enough to handle this shit.

Thanks both of you, you really lifted my spirits. Brentai: Your advice is very good, thanks.

I admit my game is not perfect, but compared with most Steam Greenlight stuff, it's a work of art.. Most of the comments in my game's page are either bad jokes or people giving advice when they don't know shit about games (or didn't even watch the video). Examples:

With eye shattering 1990s graphics.

Maybe he means late 1990's? This guy was probably not even alive in the 90's.

looks like a fun ps2 game, looks like a terrible steam 2016 game.

A fun ps2 game back then is still a fun ps2 game now. Don't forget FFX is doing great on Steam.

kinda realistic textures with a cartoony character don't blend well together.

I won't even reply to this.

Too much like a game called dizzy, just 3d and a lot newer and there was a dizzy treasure island game

Never heard of Dizzy Treasure Island and googled it... The character is an egg and kinda looks like my character. It's on an island... It's 2D and doesn't look or play anything like my game though.

Way to simplistic, not that intruiging, i suggest adding some sort of Lore, also make gameplay look more fun to play with, here, it looks really boring and very very simplistic like a putt putt or pajama sam game.

He might have a point with it looking boring and simplistic. It was a fear of mine. but adding Lore? This isn't Dark Souls!

zaratustra wrote:Steam now has the Greenlight thing, which means you have to get a rather large number of people to vote on your game - again, it needs to be attractive or viral. Optionally, if a person has a game on Steam already, you could put it under their company.

I feel ashamed for asking this, but if the Greenlight fails, can you put it up on yours? I feel so dirty. You can get some $$. Sorry! Don't worry, I understand if you don't want to since it can make you look bad.

Defenestration wrote:I'm a little surprised you opted to do that before you had a demo up... not sure about that. But voted for you.

Thanks... but do you think the demo you played was good enough? I have not changed much since I've been preparing the Greenlight thing. I just made a new demo (replaced the old one) but there is almost nothing new, just some fixes to some crap things (still no volume slider, sorry).

As the non-game dev whose opinion is worse than nothing, I was mostly surprised as it is my perception that Greenlight is really, really, hard to get through without having something tangible for people to sink their teeth into. I personally wouldn't have done greenlight without a demo I felt comfortable with.

Perhaps you can reverse the rating turn by putting up your demo (with more in game assets making clear it's pre-alpha?)

zaratustra wrote:It's a good question! I'd have to check. Also let's hope it doesn't come to that, as all money would pass through me unless we set some kind of US company account.

Thanks! That would be a pain and I have doubts it would be worth the hassle, but you have my thanks.

Defenestration wrote:Perhaps you can reverse the rating turn by putting up your demo (with more in game assets making clear it's pre-alpha?)

I think it's too late for that now. Thanks for the feedback though.

It's all a popularity contest (and I've never been good at that):

The same guy. I'm not saying my game deserves more love than "Blanco" (the game in question, which I think looks adorable and might be fun) but they're similar games and his actually looks a lot less polished yet his comments are more positive. He also seems to have advertized in 4chan's /v/, but no way I'm going into that cesspool... unless I get desperate haha. Maybe he just likes the soundtrack which sounds pretty cool. I guess my game turns off all the macho-manly guys who don't want to play as a pink girl-thing?

Anyway, I just made a new enemy in 3DSmax and I'm going to put it in the game. I'm kinda disillusioned though.

A guy who posts a comment saying exactly "No." instead of just voting no and moving on is being an asshole, regardless of how they behave elsewhere. Don't worry about assholes.

You could be making the world's best 3D exploration platformer, and there still would be a lot of people (also assholes/idiots) who aren't interested in 3D exploration platformers who would say "garbage, would not buy" instead of thinking to themselves "this isn't what I'm looking for" and moving on quietly.

Think of the most popular thing you like. I can guarantee you that this thing has millions and millions of haters. People shit on Zelda, people shit on Star Wars, people shit on Batman, people shit on the Lord of the Rings, people shit on Pokémon, people shit on anything you can name. Hell, look at, say, Twilight, and how many people shit on that, and that franchise still has like three movies and made a crazy fuckin' amount of money. Google up "citizen kane overrated" (associated searches: so boring, worst movie, Orson Welles overrated). Anything than any amount of people like has even more people shitting on it. And that doesn't matter to your bottom line. What matters is finding the people who'll dig it. And I refuse to believe there isn't an audience out there for your game, because I sure as hell would buy it and I'm not such a freak unique that I'm the only one. It's just a question of getting to that audience, and never mind the chaff.

Of course it doesn't mean you shouldn't look for and accept constructive criticism but yeah there is a large portion of stuff you can very safely ignore. Like that one guy on your comments who said that there should be more lore. Good grief, what the hell. How does one manage to shove their head so far up their own butt? How do they breathe in there? It makes no sense.

Thanks François. I'm mellower now and I guess they have the right to not like my game. It may not look like a AAA game but it could use more polish. It's just sad some games have shitty graphics and no one cares (you know what game I'm talking about).

zaratustra wrote:There's always itch.io, too.

I guess I should do that. Is it safe to use? I've never heard of it until recently. There is also Dasura.

I've been getting messages telling me to include the game in a bundle, and they say they will help me get it on Steam, but I don't feel like it.

NEWSFLASH! My game is now %28 of the way to the top 100. That is %1 less than it used to be. This is going to be bad.

Anyway, I'm thinking of releasing on itch.io, but I don't have a Paypal account and I don't know much about that. Yes, I'm the only person on this internet that doesn't know much about Paypal. I tried setting an account, but I don't know if it has to be personal or business.

Also if I sell my game on itch.io... If I'm expecting word of mouth to give my game publicity... then I'm afraid one person can download the game and then just give it to anyone. I don't know.

The game demo got a review from a website I've never heard of before (Softpedia), I guess it's my first official review. They say the controls are bad and the game is mostly empty. I don't know, most exploration platformers (Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie) have empty areas too. I don't feel my game is too barren but this is something everyone seems to mention. (anyone agree?) As for the controls, I wouldn't be surprised they used the keyboard+mouse, which is indeed kinda crappy. Maybe most computer not having a controller is why 3D platformers are rare on the PC.

Makes me wonder if I should try to get the game on the xBox one or PS4, but I don't know if they just let any indie game in.. like the WiiU which I don't think is beefy enough to run this game. I think.

Anyway, I don't know if I should try to make this game better or just start a new one... and if I start a new one, should I make a better 3D platformer using what I've learned or go back my Klik n Play roots.

Spram wrote:Anyway, I'm thinking of releasing on itch.io, but I don't have a Paypal account and I don't know much about that. Yes, I'm the only person on this internet that doesn't know much about Paypal. I tried setting an account, but I don't know if it has to be personal or business.

Seems like Business is for if you have a group of several people (up to 200) that you'd want to also be able to use your account.

Spram wrote:Also if I sell my game on itch.io... If I'm expecting word of mouth to give my game publicity... then I'm afraid one person can download the game and then just give it to anyone. I don't know.

I wouldn't worry about this. I could see maybe small groups sharing it with each other, but unless you know how to make it more secure, it's not really going to be a big enough problem to care about.

Tim O'Reilly made some pretty good points about piracy back in '02, the most famous of which is "Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy."

It may be useful to think of piracy as advertising. Not everyone who illegally downloads a game will pay for it, but some will, and you'll probably get a broader audience that way. If people are sharing your game, then it means they're interested. (Or they're just collecting game downloads and not actually playing them, which doesn't hurt your bottom line either.)

Lots of indie games (and even major releases, like The Witcher 3) are available DRM-free and manage to turn a tidy profit. You're not going to do Witcher 3 numbers or anything, but I wouldn't rely on DRM as a means of making more money either. (It bears adding that it mostly doesn't work and most games end up getting pirated anyway.)

Thad wrote:Tim O'Reilly made some pretty good points about piracy back in '02, the most famous of which is "Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy."

It may be useful to think of piracy as advertising. Not everyone who illegally downloads a game will pay for it, but some will, and you'll probably get a broader audience that way. If people are sharing your game, then it means they're interested. (Or they're just collecting game downloads and not actually playing them, which doesn't hurt your bottom line either.)

Lots of indie games (and even major releases, like The Witcher 3) are available DRM-free and manage to turn a tidy profit. You're not going to do Witcher 3 numbers or anything, but I wouldn't rely on DRM as a means of making more money either. (It bears adding that it mostly doesn't work and most games end up getting pirated anyway.)

Piracy is 201X's version of demos, to the point that I've heard of several indie devs saying something to the extent of, "If you can't afford to take a risk that you won't like my game, just pirate it and buy it if you like it".